GRID

Grid, within architecture, is often used as an organizing system to inform a designer’s decision in the placement of different structural or decorative elements. From one’s person’s perspective, a grid within a building may not always be present to just the naked eye. Often, it takes analysis and observation to start to make out and understand an underlying grid system within the structure of a building. In the Lovell Beach House designed by Rudolph Schindler, the grid may not be easy to point out. Through analysis of the house’s facade, however, one can start to understand how the supports , windows, and balconies start to form lines that intersect one another and eventually form a grid-like system. In the analysis of the Glass House’s floor plan designed by Lina Bo Bardi, a grid-like system is formed from the intersection of walls and windows within the house. This gridded system would typically not appear to those who were to simply walk into the building nor to those who would simply glance at the flloor plan but instead, the grid is abstracted from the floor plan.

Rudolph Schilndler / 1926 / Lovell Beach House

(Lef) Lina Bo Bardi / 1951 / Glass House Floor Plan (Right) Grid Diagram of Glass House Floor Plan